Flying back into the swing of things with Wendy's Monterey Ranch Crispy Chicken Sandwich

Surveillance footage captured this Monterey Ranch Crispy Chicken Sandwich before it disappeared.

Breathe deeply, folks. This may be the first new food critique  since the dog days of July 2011, but that’s no reason to forget about inhaling. Zero readers should be asphyxiated during the consumption of this post.

It's advice I needed several times as I put together this review. I’m excited to be back, I’m excited to be eating, and I’m even more excited about the subject of today’s review: Wendy’s Monterey Ranch Crispy Chicken Sandwich.

Some may take issue with this. Chicken, they say, is not exciting. Chicken, they say, is bland. Chicken, they say, isn’t worth eating unless it’s prefaced by the word “spicy.” And chicken, they say, certainly isn’t fitting for my return to the blogosphere.

This sentiment, of course, runs afoul of the truth.

Wendy’s chicken is typically very much worth eating. It’s juicy and tender and filled with flavor. If not for the grandeur of the redhead’s square hamburgers, there would be no reason to order anything but chicken in her restaurants.

But Wendy’s chicken isn’t without its own faults, namely expense. It’s right up there with the burgers when it comes to impacting your wallet, and it never seems quite right to me to shell out as much for a hunk of white meat as you would for good, iron-filled beef. That, my friends, is where the Monterey Ranch Crispy Chicken Sandwich comes in.

You see, the sandwich resides on our dear old friend the value menu. Or, as it’s known at Wendy’s, the “Everyday Value Menu.” There’s nothing wrong with adding an adjective to make yourself seem more unassuming, after all.

Everyday Value Menu tenancy means the sandwich typically costs 99 cents, in this case. That’s one feather in its cap. Another is its ranch sauce and inclusion of cheese. You can eat upscale without breaking a buck!

The sandwich is more snack-sized than meal-sized, though. You aren’t going to confuse its ability to fill your stomach with that of, say, a KFC Double Down. What you might do is confuse its messiness with the Double Down. The Monterey Ranch Crispy Chicken Sandwich bleeds ranch everywhere. You’ll come away from it looking like you went psycho on a bottle of Hidden Valley.

Fortunately Wendy’s has heard of the napkin. And the size shortfall is made up for by the fact that, at 99 cents, you can buy more than one sandwich without maxing out your credit cards.

Add it all up and you’re looking at four sporks out of five. The sandwich makes up for a size deficiency by oozing ranchy goodness. Try one next time you’re near a Wendy’s. You’ll breathe a sigh of relief that you did.